By TCN Reporter
Lucknow: Thousands of minority students of the state capital are likely to be deprived of annual central government scholarship this year. With the last date of filling the application forms on Tuesday, most of the minority institutes had not filled the forms till late Monday evening. Reason: Owing to the laxity on part of concerned institutions of the state capital, the funds may lapse this year also. Interestingly, last year also, scholarship amount was also lapsed on the grounds of similar irresponsible behaviour of the institutions concerned.
Every year the central government awards lakhs of rupees as scholarships to students pursuing education in primary schools, secondary schools, Universities, Colleges etc. With the District Minortity Welfare Officer mediating between the central government and the students of the minority community, the schools are supposed to send the list of students enrolled with an official cover letter attached to it. As per the records available with the District Minority Welfare Officer Vijay Pratap Yadav most of the institutions had not sent the list of students.
“The last date is 31 August and we are yet to receive lists from most of the colleges. They are not serious about it and then they blame us for irregularities,” said Pratap.
Last year, said Yadav, there were hundreds of cases were the students carried fake certificates along and we issued the money. But this year taking cue from last year episodes, the district administration mandated that the applicants would be entertained only when the school had given them a certificate declaring the enrolment of the institute concerned. Many candidates were returned on these grounds only on Monday.
“We do not want to repeat what happened last year. The concerned colleges and universities should sent the complete verified list then only we will do the rest,” he added.
It is noteworthy that the lapse of scholarship funds at Shia PG College was highlighted on Sunday when a group of students under the aegis of Hussaini Tiger raised slogans against the college management alleging it of last year’s scholarship irregularities. Shia PG College Principal, MS Naqvi blamed the minority department for the lapses. “We have been corresponding with them for overtwo months. I think we will get the money soon,” added Naqvi.
Commenting on the issue Yadav said that there was some problem in the list of students fed in computer as some students from other colleges had wrongly been included in the list. he however said that the money of students was safe in the government account at Jawahar Bhawan branch of State Bank of India.
“There was some mix up in the list. We told them to clarify it. I can release the money as soon as I get the list verifies by them,’ he added.